Thursday, August 1, 2013

Be a Girlfriend...

Today is National Girlfriend
Day... it is a day to let those ladies in your life that have been with you
through thick & thin how much you love & appreciate them! I have
been blessed with incredible women in my life! So I wanted to share this little
article about women needing women. I pray hurts of the past from not such
good friendships will not leave you scarred & unable to be loving &
transparent with some great women in your life! So here we go with "Why
Women Need Each Other" from Anita Carmen:

“My husband is my
best friend, but he could never take the place of the women who were and are
foundational in my life,” says Anita Carman, Founder of Inspire Women.
“God never meant for my husband to fill every role in my life. When I try to
make him what he is not, all I do is drain him!”

The Bible speaks of
women encouraging each other such as Mary the mother of Jesus going to visit
her cousin Elizabeth after the angelic visitation,” says Carman. “Elizabeth had the discernment andspiritual maturity to affirm Mary in
her calling.

God saw it fit to
team women up in pairs or in groups. He designed women to be in each other’s
lives as part of a biblically supportive community. Pastors have
expressed the need for women to minister to the women. This is especially true
in situations where women have suffered abuse.

The Bible speaks of
the older women teaching the younger women. God values the experience of a
longer walk of faithwith
Him and validates the impact of an older woman speaking truth to another.

Some say women are
more effective ministering to women because they are natural nurturers. Others
say it’s because they tend to be more relational.The Bible does not attribute the results to
nurturing or to relationship skills but simply evidences the structure of a
biblical community. God designed women to help each other.

So what happens
when a church does not have a women’s ministry? This means there is no
intentional structure to foster relationshipsamong women. Chances are, women do not
have a structure in place where they can voice their needs and have those needs
answered through the guidance, love, and support of other women.

When a woman is
alone, her mind can easily become the playground of the devil. There is no
voice of accountability in her life. There is no one who will walk beside her
and keep her from making wrong choices.

I woke up at the
age of 17 to find my mother had taken her own life. Had there been a woman in
her life who was observing her depressed state, I believe someone would have
intervened.

Instead, I was a
teen who was oblivious to the seriousness of my mother’s pain. And my father
was trying to use logic to respond to my mother’s wounded heart.

One of the most
important women in my life was my spiritualmother. Her prayers carried me through
my hardest challenges. When I was frustrated in building a ministry with few
contacts, she would say, “Your heavenly Father knows your name.” When the
ministry needed resources she would remind me, “Trust your heavenly Father. He
has everything under control.”

In establishing the
ministry of Inspire Women, I penned these words to express the ministry’s
meaning in a woman’s life: “Imagine a world where every woman wakes up knowing
her purpose. More than that, she has a friend who believes in her and will
invest in her potential to change the world.”

“When women compete
with women,” says Carman, founder ofInspire
Women, “they are deviating from God’s design. When women help each other, we
reach more than each could accomplish alone. Today God has called home myspiritual mother but I can still
remember the many hours we talked on the phone.I still recall how excited she
was to receive my call and to listen to all that God had done to part a Red Sea. And
then in her usual pattern, she would put the phone down on her lap. Then I
would hear her clap while shouting the words, ‘Yeah Anita!’”

Happy
Girlfriend's Day, you all!

As iron sharpens iron, so one person (woman)
sharpens another (woman). Proverbs 27:17

1 comment:

Welcome...so glad you stopped by to visit. This blog was created for extraordinary people like you! I hope and pray this will be a place where you can come to take a deep breath and soak in the goodness of God's Word.

Stop for a moment and let what you have read leave you refreshed! You deserve this time.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About Me

I have a passion for the Lord... I cannot wait to see what He has for me each day!
Luke and I are now in our 27th year of marriage. Our motivation is to keep growing closer to God while growing closer to each other. It just keeps getting better. Luke is still my little piece of heaven here on earth. I pray God will continue to open more doors of opportunity to share His love.
We have 2 cats: Schmoo and Mimsey. We opened a B&B in Ludington, MI. We love that God has given us this opportunity to minister to others in our home, Shining Light Inn B&B. We have a blessed life and try to live each day with grateFUL HEARTS!

Thank you for visiting “Coffee Cup Corner.” My prayer is that every person stopping for a little refreshment would know Jesus Christ as Savior. If you do not have a relationship with Jesus, life can be so confusing. The One who gave Himself for your failures can bring rightness with God, forgiveness of sin, and a new sense of wholeness and purpose into your weary soul. Christ came to this world because of His love for you, and His love can bring an end to the emptiness, bitterness, or sinfulness that haunts your life.

Accept by faith the Gift of eternal life… He is the only way to overcome forever… accomplished through the victory at Calvary for you. “The Gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 This is real victory and real overcoming… will you accept Him today?